Poetry Workshop Results in Flagrant Acts of Vandalism

When one workshop instructor

Invites the gathered poets

To chalk poetry all over Austin,

We like children take the chunks of colored calcite

And scribble poetic imagery like graffiti

On bus stop shelters and concrete park benches,

And on the wooden walls of sidewalk sheds

That surround noisy construction sites downtown,

Besides on cement walkways every where we went.

Some writers frame the lines underfoot

With borders like embroidery

Then hopscotch across the streets,

Jumping from haiku to cinquain.

But this day of poetry slips past us

In a pastel trickle of letters

That drip into gutters

When a midday shower washes them away.

Perhaps our spontaneous poems

Have risen with steam to be reprinted

In the rainbows that arch the sky.

Written April 2011, published in Austin International Poetry Festival's 2012 Anthology Di-verse-city